FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to exercising devices, and more particularly, exercising devices which are designed to specifically simulate athletic movements.
During the past twenty-five years, exercising devices have become popular. Various types of exercising devices for strengthening and conditioning and toning muscles have become widely known. Such devices include those made by Nautilus and Universal which are designed to specifically condition and strengthen a certain group of muscles or an individual muscle, e.g. biceps and triceps.
There have also been devices which are designed to enhance and simulate specific athletic movement. These devices include exercising bicycles and rowing apparatus. However, these types of devices are designed to strengthen and condition muscles. These devices do not aide the user in the neuromuscular coordination necessary for his athletic movements. For example, a world class bicyclist does not train on an exercise bicycle to improve his neuromuscular co-ordination. Nor does a world class rower use a rowing machine for that purpose. Each of these devices lacks the ability to vary the resistance of the device during the particular exercise. Thus, while there have been devices for strengthening and conditioning muscles, there is no device which accurately simulates the specific athletic movement such that the neuromuscular coordination is improved.
What is needed is an exercising device which can be easily modified so that it may be adapted for various athletic movements. For example, the arm stroke in swimming in the Australian Crawl is slow at first, then the hand gradually increases in speed as it is moved posteriorly and, as it does so, the force exerted by the swimmer increases, as does his speed. Finally, the hand movements completed and the swimmer uses his other hand to begin the next stroke of the crawl. The invention herein is designed to simulate such swimming movements and be adaptable to be easily changed from simulating one type of athletic movement to another.